Critical theory

The term ‘critical theory’ designates the approach to the study of society developed between 1930 and 1970 by the so-called ‘Frankfurt School’. A group of theorists associated with ...

Critical theory

By Geuss, Raymond

The term ‘critical theory’ designates the approach to the study of society developed between 1930 and 1970 by the so-called ‘Frankfurt School’. A group of theorists associated with ...

Theory and practice

By Oneill, John

Questions concerning the relation of ‘theory’ to ‘practice’ include whether there is a role for theory in the practical realm of ethics and politics; if so, how it ...

Frankfurt School

By Honneth, Axel
Translated by Thomson, Bridget; Bull, Michael

The origins of the circle of philosophers and social scientists now known as the Frankfurt School lie in the 1920s when a number of critics and intellectuals were ...

Social science, methodology of

By Rosenberg, Alex

Each of the sciences, the physical, biological, social and behavioural, have emerged from philosophy in a process that began in the time of Euclid and Plato. These sciences ...

Privacy

By Olsen, Frances

The distinction between private and public is both central to much legal and political thought and subject to serious challenge on philosophical, practical and political grounds by critics ...

Horkheimer, Max (1895–1973)

By Bernstein, J.M.

One of the initiators and founders of the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt, Germany, Max Horkheimer’s philosophical importance derives from his programmatic essays of the 1930s in ...

Tel Quel School

By Heath, Stephen

Tel Quel was a review published in Paris from 1960 to 1982. Under the direction of Philippe Sollers, it became a key source of avant-garde work in literature ...

Totalitarianism

By Canovan, Margaret

A term adopted in the 1920s by the Italian philosopher Giovanni Gentile to describe the ideal fascist state, ‘totalitarianism’ quickly acquired negative connotations as it was applied to ...

Theory and observation in social sciences

By Outhwaite, William

The concept of observation has received relatively little systematic attention in the social sciences, with the important exceptions of social psychology, social anthropology and some areas of sociological ...

Critical Legal Studies

By Norrie, Alan

Critical Legal Studies first developed in the USA in the latter half of the 1970s. Drawing on the political inspiration of the contemporary New Left, it was an ...

Adorno, Theodor Wiesengrund (1903–69)

By Bernstein, J.M.

Philosopher, musicologist and social theorist, Theodor Adorno was the philosophical architect of the first generation of Critical Theory emanating from the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt, Germany. ...

Adorno, Theodor Wiesengrund (1903–69)

Philosopher, musicologist and social theorist, Theodor Adorno was the philosophical architect of the first generation of Critical Theory emanating from the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt, Germany. ...

Nineteenth-century philosophy

By Stern, Robert

In the first part of the nineteenth century, the reigning philosophical outlook was idealist in one form or another, as the attempt was made to complete the intellectual ...

Rational choice theory

By Hardin, Russell

Rational choice theory is the descendant of earlier philosophical political economy. Its core is the effort to explain and sometimes to justify collective results of individuals acting from ...

Habermas, Jürgen (1929–)

By Baynes, Kenneth

Jürgen Habermas, German philosopher and social theorist, is perhaps best known for his wide-ranging defence of the modern public sphere and its related ideals of publicity and free ...

Communicative rationality

By Dews, Peter

The concept of ‘communicative rationality’ is primarily associated with the work of the philosopher and social theorist Jürgen Habermas. According to Habermas, communication through language necessarily involves the ...

Epistemology

Epistemology has been traditionally concerned with questions about the nature, value, and scope of knowledge, together with other questions that arise in relation to these. Hence, another name ...

Archaeology, philosophy of

By Wylie, Alison

Questions about the scientific status of archaeology have been central to field-defining debates since the late nineteenth century and have frequently involved appeals to philosophical sources. With the ...

Marcuse, Herbert (1898–1979)

By Callinicos, Alex

Herbert Marcuse endured a brief moment of notoriety in the 1960s, when his best-known book, One-Dimensional Man (1964), was taken up by the mass media as the Bible ...

Hegelianism

As an intellectual tradition, the history of Hegelianism is the history of the reception and influence of the thought of G.W.F. Hegel. This tradition is notoriously complex and ...

Apel, Karl-Otto (1922–)

By Kettner, Matthias

The German philosopher Karl-Otto Apel is best known for his wide-ranging ‘transcendental pragmatic’ approach to a gamut of issues in theoretical and practical philosophy. This approach accords ‘argumentative ...

Marxist thought in Latin America

By Schutte, Ofelia

Marxism is a theory offering a critique of capitalist political economy. Marxism also views itself as an instrument or means of changing the world from a capitalist to ...

Lyotard, Jean-François (1924–1998)

By Carroll, David

Jean-François Lyotard was a prominent French philosopher who is generally considered the leading theorist of postmodernism. His work constitutes an insistent critique of philosophical closure, historical totalization and ...

Hegelianism

By Stern, Robert; Walker, Nicholas

As an intellectual tradition, the history of Hegelianism is the history of the reception and influence of the thought of G.W.F. Hegel. This tradition is notoriously complex and ...